The IT Department of Coral Gables has achieved extraordinary success across the last few years under the direction of Raimundo Rodulfo. Mayor Raúl Valdés-Fauli presented Raimundo Rodulfo, the City’s Chief Innovation Officer / Director of Information Technology with the Key to the City in recognition of the IT department’s cutting edge work and development of smart city technology. “We salute Raimundo and his team for their work in providing critical technology services and fostering continuous improvement and innovation in our city,” said the Mayor.

2024

2024 Smart 20 Award

2024 IDC Smart Cities North America Award

2024 Smart 21 Community Award 

Connected City Innovator of the Year

2023

2023 Top7 Intelligent Community Award and 2023 Smart 21 Community Award Recipient

The City of Coral Gables has earned the title of one of the world’s “Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year,” awarded by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), an international network of cities and regions. This recognition highlights communities that showcase best practices in areas such as broadband connectivity, workforce development, digital inclusion, innovation, community engagement, and sustainability.

Coral Gables is the first community in Florida to receive the Top7 Intelligent Community designation, having previously been named a Smart21 community in February 2023. According to the ICF, Coral Gables "has established a robust and resilient technology infrastructure via multiple innovation districts, enabling connectivity, visibility, control and automation of city services." ICF LinkedIn post. Top7 Communities of 2023 video.

The ICF, in partnership with Economic Development Australia (EDA) and the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC), also listed Coral Gables among the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2023. This marks the city as a semifinalist for the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year. This recognition involved communities from eight nations across five continents. The Smart21 accolade is based on an evaluation of six principles: Broadband Connectivity, Sustainability, Knowledge Work, Digital Inclusion, Innovation, and Community Engagement.

View IFC announcement post and IFC announcement video.

2023 Smart 50 Award – Overall Global Award Winner and 2023 Smart 50 Award Recipient

The City of Coral Gables has been named an Overall Global Winner of the 2023 Smart 50 Awards. The city’s Innovation and Technology Team (CGIT) received this prestigious award at the Smart 50 Awards ceremony in Denver, which took place during the Spring 2023 Smart Cities Connect Conference.

The award-winning project, titled “Coral Gables Digital Twin Smart City Horizontal Integration Platform,” was engineered and developed in-house by the CGIT team. It was one of the three global winners from the overall awardee pool (1,000+ applications worldwide, 50 awardees from eight countries, 3 overall global winners including our city).

The project reflects a culmination of hard work across all CGIT divisions including GIS, Systems, Applications, and Network. The team's efforts have resulted in a robust interoperability paradigm that provides immense benefits to the community. This includes digital value, real-time insights, open data, AI-powered hyper-automation, spatial analytics, hyperconnectivity, collaboration, and operational efficiencies.

The award organization wrote: “Smart 50 Awards –in partnership with Smart Cities Connect and Smart Cities Connect Foundation– annually recognize global smart cities projects, honoring the most innovative and influential work. This year, we will designate three winners from the overall awardee pool.” 

This is not the first time the CGIT team has been recognized with a Smart 50 award. They also received the accolade in 2020 for the IT urban infrastructure project titled “Coral Gables Smart Districts Expansion.”

Smart 50 award announcement post

2023 Government Experience Award

City of Coral Gables won First Place in the 2023 Government Experience Awards presented by the Center for Digital Government and GovTech / eRepublic. The award was earned for the implementation of the city website and its integration with smart city platforms at the GovX Summit, that showcases the latest trends in the evolving experience of government. The City Clerk's Office, the Communications and Public Affairs division, and our team at the Innovation & Technology department (CGIT) worked together on the city website project. The GovX awards recognize the achievements of states and municipalities that have raised the bar on the experience of government services, creating a more engaged constituency and a more responsive government. 

The Center for Digital Government said: “The Government Experience Awards honors jurisdictions that have elevated tech standards to establish an intuitive, customer-centric approach in delivering essential resident services. The winning jurisdictions exceeded their residents' evolving needs and expectations by embracing creative data integration methods, developing new digital and mobile-friendly platforms, providing inclusive IT brand development, and introducing an omnichannel, collaborative approach.” “Coral Gables has successfully orchestrated the centralization of its customer-centric technology services, catalyzed by an initial website overhaul that has since blossomed into an all-encompassing ‘mastery hub’ catering to the diverse needs of the city’s residents.”  

View Post and Article.

2023 Sustainable Technology Innovators Award

The City of Coral Gables Innovation and Technology department received the 2023 Sustainable Technology Innovators Award at the Smart City Expo Miami, for the Coral Gables Smart City Modular Pole Industrial Design project, done in collaboration with industry (Ekin, Pininfarina) and academia (University of Miami).

View Post and Article.

2022

2022 Smart City Innovation Excellence Award Winner

Coral Gables received the 2022 Smart City Innovation Excellence Award from the Smart Cities Council, an international organization headquartered in Washington D.C. The Smart Cities Council wrote: “Coral Gables has been a leader in applying technology to improve operational efficiencies, quality of life, public safety and mobility.” Read our post.

2022 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Smart Cities Award Winner

The City of Coral Gables is proud to be one of five Jury Award recipients worldwide in the IEEE Smart Cities Contest 2022, for our Smart District Expansion Project. The team was excited to participate remotely in the ceremony transmitted live from Paphos, Cyprus. The IEEE Smart Cities Contest was created in 2021 to recognize the excellence of municipalities initiatives worldwide implementing Smart City engineering projects for their community.

View the final results of the 2022 contest or the city's certificate of recognition.

2022 LocalSmart GoldenGov City Executive of the Year Award 

The City of Coral Gables Chief Innovation Officer, Raimundo Rodulfo, won the GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year in the 2022 LocalSmart Awards. This prestigious recognition highlights the significant contributions of individuals and projects that are making a positive impact in city, county, and municipal governments across the United States.

Scoop News Group, the organization announcing the fourth annual LocalSmart Awards, said, "From Gallatin County, Montana, to Chicago, to Coral Gables, Florida, technology is playing an increasingly important role in residents’ lives. These leaders are the ones making that happen in an efficient, secure and prominent way."

View the awards LocalSmart Awards page and the winners LocalSmart Awards announcement.

2022 Geospatial Maturity Index Award 

The city’s Innovation and Technology (CGIT) GIS team won the 2022 Geospatial Maturity Index award. Coral Gables ranked in the Top 5 across the United States and in the Top 20 Cities in North America.

The Public Sector Digest (PSD) said: “The 2022 Geospatial Maturity Index (GMI) is the fourth year that PSD Citywide has published its benchmarking study for GIS programs. The GMI survey is a tool for public sector organizations to measure the maturity of their GIS (geographic information system) programs and serves as a resource to guide participants in advancing their programs. A total of 97 organizations completed the 2022 GMI survey –72 organizations from Canada and 25 from the United States.” View Geospatial Maturity Index Award results.

2021

Cybertrust America Awards at the 2021 NIST-Sponsored Cybersecurity Symposium for Smart Cities

A “Cybertrust Impact in Local Governments” award for the city, and two “Cybertrust Pioneer in Local Governments” awards for the City’s Information Technology Director Raimundo Rodulfo and former Economic Development Director Julian Perez. View NIST event page and NIST event information.

Gartner Eye on Innovation Awards

These awards recognize government organization initiatives that make innovative use of data and emerging technologies to tangibly advance their progress toward digital government. Finalists are selected by benchmarking against world-class performance standards. Gartner Eye post - Gartner Eye Innovation videos

2021 U.S Census Innovation Lab's The Opportunity Project (TOP)

City of Coral Gables is one of the two municipalities (alongside New York City) that joined seven federal agencies (the U.S. Census Bureau, HHS, NOAA, MBDA, Treasury, CFPB, and HUD) to lead a problem statement challenge in The Opportunity Project (TOP). This an initiative of the U.S. Census Open Innovation Labs (COIL) which brings government, technologists, and communities together to use federal data to solve some of the nation’s greatest challenges. Coral Gables' TOP challenge is titled "Helping Small Businesses Thrive in a Digital Economy." As part of this challenge, our city's Information Technology and Economic Development teams have been working with organizations, community leaders, user advocates and subject matter experts across sectors (government, industry, business, academia and nonprofit) to develop actionable digital solutions and products.  TOP post – TOP video

2021 Digital Disruptors Award

City of Coral Gables Chief Innovation Officer / Director of Information Technology Raimundo Rodulfo was selected as a winner in the 2021 Digital Disruptors Globant Awards in the Transformation Catalyst category. Globant Awards

This global award aims to recognize those individuals that stand out and go the extra mile in order to guarantee their companies stay at the frontline of the digital revolution. They drive change within their organizations, motivating their peers to reinvent themselves, encouraging a culture of innovation and challenging the status quo...The Transformation Catalyst award category recognizes those who carry out a business transformation that impacts every aspect of the organization.

Globant 

2020

8 Smart Cities to Watch in 2020

State Tech Magazine named Coral Gables as one of the 8 Smart Cities to Watch in 2020. Our City Beautiful was recognized for being at the forefront of using technology to address residents’ needs during the pandemic.

This new batch of rising smart city stars have focused their efforts on providing the right smart city applications at the right time for their residents.

StateTech

2020 Smart Cities Announcement - 2020 Smart Cities Post

 2020 Smart 50 Award, Urban Infrastructure

City of Coral Gables has been named a recipient of the 2020 Smart 50 Award. The Coral Gables Smart Districts competed with innovative and transformative projects from around the world and received the award under the Urban Infrastructure category. Excerpts from the announcement: “Smart 50 Awards, in partnership with Smart Cities Connect Foundation and US Ignite, annually recognize global smart cities projects, honoring the most innovative and influential work. This year, primary categories included community engagement, digital transformation, smart mobility, urban infrastructure, and urban operations...these municipal-scale projects exemplify innovation and concrete influence in their community or communities or implementation.” 2020 Smart 50 Award Announcement – 2020 Smart 50 Award Recipients

2020 Open Cities Index Award

City of Coral Gables is a recipient of the 2020 Open Cities Index award. Our City ranked in the top 10 of the Open Cities Index in North America, and was the top-ranked in the U.S. for second year in a row. “The City of Coral Gables scored the highest out of all US participants and jumped an incredible 21 ranks from the 2019 OCI earning them the title of Most Improved. Ranking 1st overall in Readiness and 3rd overall in Impact, they are constantly striving to make government data accessible.” "This year, a new dataset category was added specifically to gather data on how municipalities have adapted to share COVID-19-related data with their community and external organizations... The City of Coral Gables utilized datasets derived from city traffic and environmental city sensors to provide visualizations on the change in residential mobility throughout the City." More information: Award Website

2020 StateTech State & Local Government Influencer List 

City of Coral Gables Chief Innovation Officer / Director of Information Technology Raimundo Rodulfo was named to the StateTech Magazine list of “30 State and Local Government IT Influencers Worth a Follow in 2020”: Announcement - eNews

2020 Inaugural STIR Labs Program

City of Coral Gables was selected as one of the 17 public agencies to be part of the inaugural STIR Labs program funded by National Science Foundation, NSF. STIR Labs is a ground-breaking program transforming government-academic collaboration. The Coral Gables research challenges included artificial intelligence and machine learning applications for predictive analytics and other smart city solutions to improve citizen services and open data platforms for decision makers and first responders, and resulted in the development of the Coral Gables Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant (AIDA) bot.  Post - Challenge

Smart Disruptor Recognition at the 2020 Smart City Expo Miami   

CIO/IT Director Raimundo Rodulfo spoke at the “20 Cities Experiences by Smart Disruptors” TED-style series of the 2020 Smart City Expo Miami and received a “Smart Disruptor” recognition from the organization. View event site and presentation video.

2019

2019 International Team Excellence Award, American Society for Quality and Top 10 Global Performing ITEA Teams

The City of Coral Gables Information Technology Department won 3rd place in the ASQ 2019 World Conference’s ITEA case study storyboard competition in Fort Worth, TX. The case study was about the city’s I.T. six sigma black belt project our team submitted to the American Society for Quality's (ASQ) International Team Excellence Awards (ITEA). Our team was invited by ASQ to present our project at the 2019 World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) as part of the ITEA case studies exhibition. We are proud of our I.T. Team, our ITEA project’s quality improvements, and this recognition from the American Society for Quality! Review our ITEA case study poster.

Additionally, Quality Progress Magazine, the official publication of the American Society for Quality, included our City's Information Technology Team in their June 2019 issue, as part of a group of 10 top-performing ITEA teams from around the world that participated in the International Team Excellence Award. Read more.

2019 Open Cities Index Award

The City of Coral Gables received a trophy for being the top performing U.S. organization in the 2019 Open Cities Index (OCI). The Open Cities Index (OCI) was developed by the Public Sector Digest (PSD) in partnership with the Open Data Exchange (ODX) as an appraisal framework to gauge the level of openness in cities across North America. The Open Cities Index is Canada’s first benchmarking study for municipal open data initiatives and serves as a tool for public sector organizations to measure the maturity of their open data programs. Several municipalities from the United States participated in 2019, and Coral Gables received the top performing U.S. rank recognition. More information: Announcement

2018

2018 Digital Cities Award

City of Coral Gables won first place nationally in the Digital Cities 2018 awards, in the category of Up to 75K population. This is an annual recognition of city performance and innovation in "using technology to align with city goals; promote citizen inclusion in important government processes and share government data with the public; proactively address citizen expectations; and boost cybersecurity and increase efficiency." Thank you to the Center for Digital Government and e-Republic/Govtech for this recognition! Our information technology team is happy and highly motivated to continue moving forward working together with City leaders, all departments and our partners, improving citizen services and advancing smart city technologies and innovation. More: Award Site  -  News Post

2018-Present NIST Global City Teams Challenge

The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) included the Coral Gables smart city initiatives into the NIST’s Global Communities Technology Challenge (GCTC) and referenced Coral Gables in several best-practice case studies. The NIST GCTC program is a collaborative platform for the development of smart cities and communities, led by National Institute of Standards and Technology, a bureau of U.S. Department of Commerce, in partnership with other U.S. federal agencies including U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), National Science Foundation, International Trade Administration, and National Telecommunications and Information Administration. It enables local governments, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, technologists, and corporations from all over the world to form project teams, or “action clusters,” and “SuperClusters,” to work on groundbreaking Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) applications within the city and community environment.

More: Visit the City’s NIST GCTC action cluster page, several NIST Coral Gables case studies, and the complete list of action cluster projects

2018 Bloomberg Challenge Champion City

Coral Gables was selected as one of 35 finalist champion cities in Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge nationwide competition, and won a prototype funding award. Our City partnered with University of Miami researchers to build a smart energy micro-grids prototype, funded by this award. This idea prioritizes power distribution during emergencies to ensure public safety operations in Coral Gables can continue after a hurricane. The Bloomberg Challenge’s goal was to encourage city leaders to uncover bold, inventive ideas that confront the toughest problems cities currently face.  News Post 1 / News Post 2 / Article

2017

2017 IEEE World Standard Day Smart City Contest Prize

In celebration of World Standards Day, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standards Association held a contest exploring the 2017 theme of “standards make cities smarter.” Contestants submitted videos exploring how standards are helping to create the smart city of today and tomorrow. Each winner’s video included references to Smart Cities standards and how they address a problem. Entries were judged on their relevance to Smart Cities, creativity, originality, and quality of production. The City of Coral Gables winning submission was about how the City developed a robust network and system infrastructure based on engineering standards and best practices that enables residents and first responders to stay connected even when Mother Nature strikes at her hardest. The IEEE, originated in 1884, is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

More: Announcement  /  Presentation  /   Video